2009 May 25th

Tournament Highlights:

The Winner

•The 2009 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in Seven-Card Stud champion is Freddie Ellis, from Brooklyn, NY. He is the new Seven-Card Stud World Champion.

•Freddie Ellis is a 74-year-old real estate broker. He is originally from Miami, FL.

Tournament Highlights:

The Winner

• The 2009 World Series of Poker $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha champion is Jason Mercier, from Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

• Mercier is a 22-year-old professional poker player. He attended Florida Atlantic University for one year. He then transferred to a local community college and received his Associates Degree.

Every poker player needs a bankroll. When you play poker, money is the tool of your trade just as sure as wrenches are the tools of an auto mechanic's trade.

If you don't have any money, you're out of the game. But poker gives you an unbridled opportunity to build a bankroll, especially online poker, where the cost to play is less than it is in a traditional casino and you have an opportunity to begin building a bankroll from a very small base.

Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. -Jack London

[This is a work of poker fiction set ten thousand hands in the future. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.]

Online poker rooms and gaming sites have been shutting their virtual doors since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) was passed in the U.S. Congress in 2006 and subsequently became law. As many sites fled the lucrative American market, they forfeited the millions-sometimes billions-of dollars in profits that kept their companies in business. Many overseas-based websites have since ceased to exist, and two more names were added to that list in recent months.

The title of today's column is advice we have all heard and read for years, about how we should continually change gears and mix up our play to keep opponents guessing. Hey, it's good solid advice; that's why it's been around so long. But what does it really mean? How do you accomplish this goal? Does it just mean moving from playing tight to playing loose and vice versa? All fair questions, and we will explore the answers today.

What Hobby had planned for a cruise as a nice way to get free lessons on how to win tournaments turned into a near disaster. We were interrupted during dinner at a Catalina restaurant by a trio of robbers. Diamond Jim, our poker pro, rather than give up his valuable rings put them into his cup of coffee. After the proprietor cold cocked the guard at the door with a baseball bat, Hobby and I took out the other two perps in a thrilling assault. In the pursuing excitement, Jim took a big draft of coffee; he swallowed one ring and choked on another until Hobby executed a Heimlich maneuver.

A few issues ago, I wrote an introductory article about playing low limit HORSE-a rotating game of hold'em, Omaha/8, razz, seven stud, and 7-stud/8 or better. If you are not familiar with how each of these games is played, I suggest that you become knowledgeable with the basics before attempting to play for real money.

High Stakes Poker is my favorite televised poker program. The latest season features 2008 WSOP Main Event Champion Peter Eastgate, Ilaries "Ziigmund" Sahamies and Tom "durrrr" Dwan. The young guns were up against the Las Vegas big dogs such as Eli Elezra and Doyle Brunson. You can also watch High Stakes Poker online at youtube.com. Just type in "High Stakes Poker" into the search and you'll find almost every single episode as far back as the first season.

After he signed up for a few games, Fred sat next to me and asked what were the card odds against a runner-runner straight and what money odds did he need to chase.

"Suppose, holding Jh-10h the dealer flopped Qs-7d-2c. There would be three doubletons that would make you a straight: A-K, K-9, and 9-8.

"There are 16 ways to make each doubleton, so 48 doubletons would make you a straight. Since C(47,2) doubletons could fall on the turn and river, the probability of a backdoor straight is 0.0444, roughly equivalent to one out, or about 21.5-to-1 against.